However, another interesting concept grew out of my efforts to create one of these community feeds around the attendees of the 2008 Blogger Social that is taking place in New York.

Community Event-streaming

How many parties have you been to where the host asked everyone to upload pictures to a Flickr group or videos to a YouTube channel? Everyone wants to crowdsource the task of capturing a moment in time as one person can’t be everywhere at once, but we still want to experience everything.

Now pictures and videos are nice, but what about capturing the conversations that give the media context? Currently it is lost and you need your friends to walk you through their albums for the full effect.

The solution?

1. Create a Friend Feed account with the name of the event

2. Friend everyone that will be attending

3. Export the aggregated information through RSS

4. The RSS channel becomes the archive of everything that happened at the event, which can be search and explored at a later date

The aggregated feed aggregates photos and videos, but also the Tweets and Blog posts that provide the content with context in a chronological stream.

Smart guy. I just wanted to share this amazing minidocumentary on Stefan Sagmiester’s exhibit “Everything I have learned in my life… Up to this point”.

Also one of truths is, “Keeping a diary supports personal development”.

This whole trend toward lifestreaming and everyone sharing their lives online has always been approached as an outward facing action; however, by making our lives more transparent to others we are also making it more transparent to ourselves.

The most interesting thing happened this morning on the morning commute. I got on the C train in Brooklyn completely engrossed in my New Yorker cocoon, with iTouch powered 180 BPM house music trying valiantly to wake me up before the morning java and my visual senses fixated on Convergence Culture.

Then it happened… the subway operator flung open his door and starting talking to the passengers of the car. At first everyone was startled as the man began to recite various stories he had read in the morning paper. However, by the 3rd stop the entire car was caught up in an intense ad hoc analysis of current events, and every new passenger that stepped into this car turned symposium was shallowed in the conversation.

I even joined in (It broke through my media addict shield, which is no easy feat).

Anyway, it just reminded me of old town criers that would disseminate information. One interesting thing about mass media is that we are more apt to discuss it as we are all on the same page vs. esoteric media theory posts from online celebs (I’m still shocked when I drop a name like David Armano and people look at me with a blank stare…)

Because the Wisdom of Crowds is a flawed model for long tail information aggregation. It works for data predictions and guessing the number of jelly beans in a jar, but the ‘Crowd’ is nontransparent, it is sterile, and most importantly, it doesn’t know who I am.

The essence of the adage, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, is that every individual has a unique perspective. Extending the message, we can safely say that everything is dependent on the perception of the individual; however the individual is only 50% of the equation for not everything is static.

Data in its most basic form is a series of static numbers and observations; however, when parsed through data visualization tools the data can become far more. For geeks like me, it even has a certain beauty to it.

Inspiration, creativity, and eureka moments have a greater chance of occurring when you approach a problem from as many perspectives as possible, and also mold the object being observed.

If this is a topic that is of interest, check out the currently running ‘Design and the Elastic Mind’ exhibit running at MoMA. Phenomenal exhibit across the board, but the data visualization component is hypnotic.

The slide above is from Noah Brier’sBrand vs. Utility presentation, which reminded me of a post I wrote a long time ago in my young blogging days on a concept I called ‘The Expectation Gap”. I’ve left the article as is, therefore, it is slightly out of context, but the core concept still shines through. Also I wanted to showcase my ever greater skill as manipulating the English language….. Yes, I’m well aware it is a futile endeavor…

Without further ado:

The essence of conversational marketing is of course to get people talking. To ignite conversation around a given service or product. To seed the conversation and amplify it, you need the right people to say right things about your product. For example you want the camera buff to evangelize your new digital camera to his friends for he is a trusted source of information regarding cameras. At least within his network. However, how do you get the camera buff to crank up the volume of your message, to amplify it.

The key is in managing the expectation gap. To explain this concept I will use 4 scenarios at a local pizza shop.

1. You are hungry so you walk into a pizza shop you’ve never been to before. You are expecting a decent slice of pizza, but you’re primarily just trying to get a quick fix. The expectations are relatively low, but the pizza isn’t bad in fact it is slightly better than anticipated. You go back to the office and might mention it. The expectation gap was too small to register.

2. Now this time you walk into the same pizza place and are BLOWN away by the flavor. When you get to the office this time you tell everybody about this transcendental pizza experience. The expectation gap was huge, therefore the quality and volume of amplification is equally exaggerated.

3. Now if you get a slightly subpar pizza it’s also not a talking point as the expectation gap was insignificant.

4. The final scenario is if your best friend, whose pizza taste you agree with, raves about a particular pizza joint and you decide to give it a shot. However, the pizza was so bad you ended up throwing it away. Due to the hype, the expectations were astronomical and subsequently the negative expectation gap was equally as large. You now go back to your friend and curse him out for making you endure such a terrible gastronomic experience, and vow to never heed another recommendation from him. In addition, you tell everyone else you know how bad it was. Finally, your friend, the evangelist, loses confidence in his recommendation and stops promoting the shop. The repercussions are severe.

The greater the expectation gap, the more conversation, good or bad, is catalyzed around the product.

The key to conversational marketing is optimizing the expectation gap, not simply hyping a product to unrealistic levels. In today’s world if the product under delivers word travels fast. As marketers we need to find the balance between building positive buzz around our products and not over-hyping.

Create as great a gap as possible between expectations and delivery to catalyze conversation.

It is a fantastic project and I’m very humbled to have been selected to participate.

In addition, all proceeds will be donated to Variety’s LifeLine charity of kids. It’s win-win, you get to gain more perspective on the state of media today, and the budding media strategists of the future will have an opportunity to live full, fulfilling lives.

Finally, we are planning a huge Bum Rush for new book on March 29th, so please support the project and help spread the word.